Do you have ADHD? If it's something you've wondered, have you ever taken one of those free online ADHD tests? I'm taking one, on camera in real time to celebrate ADHD awareness month... Even though it's taken me 5 months to make this video. I go through the questionnaire, and then share why I don't think ADHD is a "disorder", or why the word hyperactivity doesn't quite capture the hyperfocus... What do you think?
TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
Hello, welcome back to the channel. I don't know if I should be making this video. I definitely don't think I should be releasing it, so if you are seeing this on YouTube, well... something happened! It's, uh, it's a really difficult thing to talk about, but I'm gonna give it a try anyway. Have I got ADHD? That's quite a big question in quite a small sentence, isn't it? Um, I really don't think I should be sharing this, but anyway, let's go for it. I first got the idea for it. It hadn't even occurred to me until I saw, and this in itself might be a diagnosis, but I saw there's a presenter in the UK called Iain Lee, and he just sort of mentioned it on his radio show.
“I did... it's one of those things. There's a thing with like, you know, 26 questions, 'Do you have ADHD?' That's a good starting point because I got 25 out of 26. And I said to Katherine, 'But yeah, that's everyone does because they're trying to sell you something.' And she did it and got four. These free online ADHD tests. I know they're all kinds of wrong attached to them. Some say they are there to help pharmaceutical companies to sell more meds. But I, and I'm not interested in that anyway, but I thought, 'Well, there's no harm in just doing the test and seeing what comes out.' So that's what we're going to do today, right now, on camera, in real time.
I do not know if I should be sharing this, but let's give it a go. What's the worst that can happen? So I've gone to ADHD UK. There are hundreds of these online tests around. They all seem to be exactly the same, but we'll go with this one for now. I'll leave the link in the description. And my goodness, let me know in the comments how this goes for you. I'd love to see how these things are going for you. So we've got step one of two. Let's dive straight in. Please tick the answer that most closely represents the frequency of occurrence of each of the symptoms. Right, it's already. I have a problem with calling how my brain is wired a “symptom”, but we'll talk about this at the end of the test. How often do you have trouble wrapping up the final details of a project once the challenging parts have been done? I've got a pull-down menu here. Um, I'll put 'very often'. This is probably why the video hasn't come out. I do have a problem with completing things and letting go of them.
Question two: How often do you have difficulty getting things in order when you have to do a task that requires organization? There's a lot of parts to that question. I'm finding it hard to concentrate to the end of the question.
I'd say 'often'. How often do you have problems remembering appointments or obligations? Very often.
I have to set reminders and countdowns on my phone. I shouldn't be interpreting this already, but, you know.
Question four: When you have a task that requires a lot of thought, how often do you avoid or delay getting started? Or yeah, often. I have to get my thoughts in order.
Question five: How often do you fidget or squirm with your hands or feet when you have to sit down for a long time?
Well, I wouldn't call it fidgeting or squirming, but I always thought you're either a chair swiveller or a knee jigger. I'm a knee jigger. I have some footage of my knee jigging right now. It actually makes this table creak when I do it.
That's going to be very often. Always, there isn't an 'always' option.
How often do you feel overly active and compelled to do things, like you were driven by a motor? Oh yeah, all the time.
Section B. Please answer the questions below. Tick the box that best describes how you have felt and conducted yourself. How often do you make careless mistakes when you have to work on a boring or difficult project? I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so not often, but I have to work really hard to do that. I'd say 'often'.
How often do you have difficulty keeping your attention when you're doing boring or repetitive work? Uh, very often. I find that really difficult.
How often do you have difficulty concentrating on what people say to you, even when they're speaking directly? That's often, right?
So it's not that I'm not paying attention to them; it's just usually when they're really interesting, my head is thinking of all the things that what they're talking about entails. But it is very often.
How often do you misplace or have difficulty finding things at home or at work? Again, always. My keys, everything.
My son is really highly recommending that I get one of those Samsung tag things. I don't know if that would help me.
How often are you distracted by activity or noise around you? Always. I absolutely hate working in an open plan office. And I work in the media, and all media offices are big open plan bullpens. It's why that's why I work in the Hut. It's the happy Hut behind me, which is behind the washing. Can't see it. I'm just pointing at some washing!
How often do you leave your seat in meetings or other situations in which you're expected to remain seated? Always.
Sometimes I act things out in a meeting. You know, they are the writers meetings; you're supposed to be generating ideas. But I find it a little challenging to stay in my seat.
Question 13: How often do you feel restless or fidgety? Look at me now. Alright, very often. I wish I could come down from the very often end of the scale on these questions.
How often do you have difficulty unwinding and relaxing when you have time to yourself? Because I don't. I don't find it difficult. I just find other things to do.
Question 15: How often do you find yourself talking too much when you're in social situations? Always. I've got into so much trouble from the talking. I mean, you know, I'm a comedy writer, and I'll write scripts for media companies. So, in those situations, I'm supposed to, you know, talk. I also, I'm not actually that talkative. I'm not. I don't.
I try to keep it on a bare minimum, which is probably hard to believe on a channel like this. But I have to really edit together and I really struggle to get stuff out. But when I am on a one-on-one, I just say too much and that's got me into trouble. The biggest trouble it got me into was when we were selling a house. We were selling a flat, and on the day before the open day when all the people were going to come around and see the house, I saw the neighbour who lived downstairs. I just had a conversation. It was very pleasant, and right at the end, I just noticed a wasp going into a grill in her flat. Why did I mention that? But I did.
"Oh look, you've got a wasp going into the grill of your flat there. Really. Bye."
And I... I went, and she... She went there, and I discovered a very faint small whiff of gas, and um, gas Engineers came out, completely took the wall apart, took all the gas meters off, with gas emergency signs up. So people coming to see our property just saw this nightmare mess. And yeah, that was all from me just not knowing when to shut my mouth.
Question 16: When you are in a conversation, how often do you find yourself finishing the sentences of the people you're talking to before they can finish them themselves?
Well, rarely because I hold back, but I want to. I want to dive in. I want to help them. I want to show them that I'm interested. Worse than that, I... I even jump on to finish the thought that might be three thoughts from what they're conveying at the moment, and they have got really angry at me, completely understandably, because they want to communicate. But my brain is just eager to join in with what they're saying. It comes from a place of kindness rather than arrogance or rudeness.
How often do you have difficulty waiting your turn in situations when turn taking is required? I'm quite good with that, really, because I'm quite neurotic about my place in social situations.
How often do you interrupt others when they are busy? I... I... I'd say really on that one. So, I had some questions that weren't very often. Your section score results are pull up a chair, pull up some popcorn, let's make the text huge.
Section A: A score of four or more indicates the patient has symptoms highly consistent with ADHD in adults, and further investigation is warranted. I scored six.
Section B: I scored 10. Your results for Section B are not used in diagnosis but instead used to help inform the conversation with your clinician, so quite responsibly, which helps me in this video.
They're saying, "Look, you gotta talk to someone. In the UK there is quite a backlog for a diagnosis. I'm not sure what that would achieve for me." What's good about this test is that it's showing that in all the things that I seem to have problems with, the things that create tension and just hassle in my life might have an explanation, and that's a really nice feeling.
I took this test off camera five months ago, and I've just read... I'll put some links to some fantastic YouTube channels in the description if I make this video go live. I'm feeling quite militant about this. I... I... I know I've got it. I'm not sure what I would gain from having a, um, formal diagnosis. I mean, obviously, they would give me tools, I'd imagine, or confirm one way or the other that it is or it isn't, and there might be other things affecting it as well. I'm aware that there are other conditions that can be present at the same time as ADHD, but I just didn't think I did. I'm embarrassed that I didn't even consider that I might be wired differently. I always thought it was... it was laziness or some kind of personality flaw, and it's not. I'm just... my brain is wired differently.
I'm feeling quite strongly that the problem isn't me. How's this for arrogance?
I don't think the problem is me. I think I'm... I'm wired in a particular way, which is great because it means that I have the... the career that I've had, the comedy credits that I've gained through my career over the decades have been because of the way my brain is wired. It's also got me into a lot of trouble, especially at work. I've been berated, yelled at, but I'm really proud of what I've done, and I wouldn't do any of that were it not because of the way that I'm wired.
It's slightly different for me. I need to make a video about this as well, but my sleep was broken for most of my life, and I fixed it about eight years ago, and I have a feeling that because I've fixed my sleep, I now have a lot of energy, and this is why I'm starting to examine the whole ADHD thing because I was just too tired to even get stuff done, to let my brain run away with myself. But now my sleep is fixed, the ADHD is becoming really super apparent.
My problem is this: I... I think it's wrong to call it a disorder. I think there's a section of a population that is wired this way, and I'm going to find a better way of explaining this in time. But I think the human species needs, you know, Evolution needs brains not to be wired the same way.
It would make perfect sense that there are people in a species who don't feel comfortable working a consistent nine to five in an open plan office, sitting on a chair amid noise, and then go home at six. We've only had that for 250 years with industrialization. Wouldn't it make sense in evolutionary terms?
This is... this is the dangerous stuff, but wouldn't it make sense to have a section of the population, a section of the species who are wired to look for problems, to solve problems for the tribe, for the community? Wouldn't that make sense? I honestly believe that it's not a disorder. It's natural that some people think in a different way and think, you know, in a way that is different from so-called neurotypical people, which are the mass in the middle. There would be a group who are outliers who do things differently, and that's a threat to a culture that needs to make money consistently and to maintain productivity.
You don't want people who can't sit down, who can't sit in school. But how natural is it for kids to sit in a room on a day like this? My kids aren't here because it's half term. It's a holiday, vacation here in the UK. Why are we sending kids to be indoors to sit on chairs in rows, to do as they're told between nine and three? I would suggest that that is not natural, that that is a disorder.
I don't think I have an attention deficit. I hyper focus on things, which apparently is a trait of people with ADHD, the ability to hyper focus on the things that we're interested in. That's not attention deficit. Those four letters are the most pejorative, horrible put down of someone who follows their beat and follows their interests to the nth degree and who has interests, a wide range of interests and they go deep on them.
We go deep on them.
I think it's wrong to call it a disorder or a disability. You know, I have nothing but respect for people who have taken the bold and brave decision to have, you know, to take medication for it. That's great. I'm really happy for you, but it's not for me. It's not for me. I've... I'm wired this way. I've got nothing to fix. The society needs fixing, and who are the people who are going to do that?
I don't think it's going to be the neurotypicals.
I've really... I've wanted to say this for a long time. I feel very unsure about sharing this at all. It's weird saying it out loud in the garden.
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